Oneshot, one home
by Fallyn Irlandes
Summary: A place for all my complete oneshot drabbles to live. Everything from How to Train Your Dragon to Nancy Drew to Leverage.
1. Flight (HttyD)

There's nothing like flying, Hiccup thinks.

Nothing compares to the feel of the wind in your face. Even as it stings your eyes, freezes your cheeks, and steals your breath—or perhaps it isn't 'even', but 'because'—because the wind does all these things, you just can't help but grin wide enough to split your face, and sometimes you can't help shouting with exhilaration.

And no matter how wonderful flying is, it only gets better when you think about _how_ you're flying.

Dragons.

Such a beautiful, strange word…so many connotations and emotions attached to the little word 'dragons'. Near mythical, the mysterious creatures had been separated from the Vikings for so long. Such a treasure they had almost missed…

Oh, flying.

Flying on _dragons._

Such a thing had only been a dream.

And sometimes, Hiccup thinks as he raises his face to the starlight, sometimes it still feels like a dream.

A good dream.

He smiles and leans forward over Toothless' neck.

"Let's see what you've got," he whispers.

Toothless' ears twitch and his muscles tense. Hiccup adjusts his grip as the Night Fury tucks in his wings and leans forward. Hiccup sees the stars wheel above his head, watches them flash past his eyes, sees the ocean swing into view, far below.

He catches his breath as they fall towards the sparkling sea, and he thinks that there is nothing quite like flying.


	2. If Looks Could Kill (LBD)

George Wickham was happily flirting with Lizzie Bennet, in front of a camera no less, when he had the strangest feeling. He stopped talking.

"What's wrong?" Lizzie asked.

"I—I just had the weirdest feeling." He shook his head to clear it.

"What do you mean?" Lizzie looked from him to the camera and then to Charlotte and he figured she would edit this part out.

"I just—for a moment there I felt like someone had tried to kill me by thinking about it. Through the camera screen.

They both blinked at each other, then his easy grin reasserted itself and he fell back on its winsome charm.

(There were a few times after that when he had the sense that at least one of Lizzie's viewers would have happily strangled him if they'd been able, and he wondered why.)

George was busy winning Lydia over and pretending to ignore the camera when he suddenly stopped and glared at it.

"What is it?" Lydia asked.

His scowl grew deeper. "I had the strangest feeling that someone tried to kill me. With thoughts. Through the camera."

"That's crazy," Lydia said softly, trying to smile.

"Yeah." Then he knew how to salvage this moment and he turned it into a way for him to tell her how crazy in love with her he was.

He was busy hiding out in-some place—when Gigi called. "Hi, peach," he said easily, then frowned as he once again felt as though someone had tried to kill him with mere thoughts. This was becoming worrisome. He wondered if anyone else ever felt like that.

Then, when he'd hung up, a few minutes afterward, anyway, he had the oddest feeling. He could have sworn he heard several thousand females shouting triumphantly, "Terms of Service, jerk!"

He was probably going insane, he decided. He should probably have run in the opposite direction when he heard of the Bennet sisters.

When Darcy finally found him, he probably looked very insane. He basically jumped at the chance to get away from anyone's attention and pretty much begged _him_ to take the website down.


	3. Chasing Her Quarry (Nancy Drew games)

_A/N: I don't really imagine this in any particular game, but I've got the basic idea of the endgame chases from Phantom of Venice or Tomb of the Lost Queen in my head. Mostly Venice._

* * *

Chasing the bad guy is exhausting.

She'd been running on adrenaline all day, dashing from one clue to the next, never stopping, always fixed on the next goal, an unstoppable force.

She is running now, running after her quarry, chasing him through the alleys and the streets. She only has to stay with him, follow him as he leads her to his boss. This is the chase, the endgame.

For every stitch in her side as she runs, for every jarring thud of her feet which pounds her skull and her teeth, she gets a new burst of energy.

Chasing the bad guy is _exhilarating._

It's in times like these, after the long run, the fight with criminals who preyed upon the weak—in times like these, chasing after him, she finally feels like the predator. She runs them to ground as though she were a bloodhound born to do so, and she _loves_ it.

She is Nancy Drew, girl detective.

And she wins.


	4. The Advantages of Caring (Sherlock)

_A/N: Today the lot fell on Friendship and Sherlock, which I thought enormously fortuitous. And while thinking about it, a dry British voice whispered a line-and has kept repeating it-so we have Mark Gatiss' voice to thank for this little blurb about caring and friendship and such._

* * *

Caring is not an advantage.

Caring makes your heart—makes you—vulnerable.

Caring _hurts._

So Sherlock Holmes doesn't.

He can fake it, of course, and he recognizes the basic and frustratingly _un-_ deletable human need for companionship (or he just likes to hear himself talk) so he looks for a flatmate.

He should have not cared harder.

Caring isn't just _not_ an advantage.

It's a dagger and a bullet and a landmine and—

And…

And it saved his life.

Because some people—John Watson—care about everyone. Including, oddly enough, Sherlock. And some people—John—care enough about him, just out of principle, to kill to ensure his safety.

Caring is a chain reaction nuclear _bomb_ and with every new item of evidence to support such a conclusion—the ridiculous clench in his gut when he sees John in danger, the unexplainable sense of loss when John is upset with him—he thinks he should be able to just stop caring like used to and he _can't._

He can't not care about John.

He sits there, on the counter at St. Bart's, and he watches John stride away, and he cares. His flatmate doesn't realize that his words are still echoing, if not physically then definitely in Sherlock's head, and he cares about what they had been and what they had meant and how they were spoken and what they were:

" _Friends protect people."_

Caring is a _death trap_ and—

And…

Ha.

He doesn't care.

He's going to suffer— it will take years and the loss of his reputation hurts and he's going to lose so much more in a years long fight against a nameless faceless organization and he won't have anyone to help him—and he's going to suffer for John, and he doesn't care.

Because John will be okay, John will be alive, because of his actions.

Sherlock is…he's John's friend.

And he wouldn't have it any other way.

Because while caring can be…hurtful…it's led to an entirely unexpected but welcome development. It is perhaps the only advantage to caring in the first place. It is the only good thing about all of this. The only good thing about caring for someone is being cared for in return.

John cares for _him._

He _knows_ Sherlock, knows how aggravating he can be, and _cares_ about him still. Calls him _friend._

It's enough to make him cry, and he has to fight the tears harder than he thought he would as he says goodbye and tosses the phone aside.

He takes a breath, thinks _friends protect people_ and throws his arms out and tips forward and he falls.

(And because Sherlock Holmes cared, the friend he never thought he'd have is alive)


	5. Fundamentally Wrong (Halo 4)

_A/N: First of all, I've never played the game. any of them. But I_ did _take the time to watch all cutscenes from every game, because my siblings were playing the game and I wanted to understand the story._

 _And then Cortana happened._

 _Blasted feels. I hope I've done the moment justice-there's probably a few details I missed, but I rewatched the scene and tried to make it accurate. I'd also like to give props to the animators for somehow communicating Master Chief's emotion when he_ doesn't even have a face, _and I wrote part of this while listening to Into Eternity (Dark World soundtrack) and I'd kind of like to die now._

* * *

This is the moment where he wins, he thinks.

Because this is the moment where it looks most hopeless. Where he doesn't have a prayer of succeeding. Where he is slowly being choked to death and it looks like he is losing.

(this is the moment where Cortana steps in. All of them.)

And here he is.

These are the moments he was born and bred for. These are the moments which make him.

This is where he is a soldier, and he will save Earth and humanity.

He does not falter, he does not hesitate, he does not second-guess, he is not afraid.

He detonates the bomb.

For a moment, a brief moment, he almost experiences something like fear, but it is simply the black darkness of 'almost dead again'. He cricks his neck, almost smiling, waiting for Cortana's gentle blue light to wash the dark away.

 _Why is he waiting?_

"Cortana," he says, looking up. Something is wrong. Something is _fundamentally_ wrong.

He stands. It looks like…computer code…

There is something wrong with reality.

"Cortana, do you read?"

 _Where is she?_

 _Why isn't she answering?_

This is _wrong._

"Cortana, come in," he says, and he hears the tiny note of command in his voice.

No, not command…desperation.

What is this place? Where is she?

Finally, _finally,_ he senses her.

Behind him.

 _This is wrong,_ his subconscious screams.

He turns, slowly.

And for a moment, just a half second of brain activity, all is right with the world, because she is there.

But then he catches up with his own thoughts, and realizes that _she_ is _there._

Not _here._

How is it even possible?

(he thinks he knows)

His brain stops trying to figure out how and just watches Cortana walk toward him. It is a sight he hadn't known he wanted to see, and again for a moment all is right, and again he catches up to reality.

"How—" he says brokenly, confused.

(his mind is screaming because something is desperately wrong and he thinks he knows what it is)

"Oh, _I'm_ the strangest thing you've seen all day?" she teases him, like everything is normal.

It can't be, when her voice is higher than normal, and it shakes.

He remembers something. "But if we're here-" he starts, trying to figure out what is catching his attention about this fact.

"It worked," she interrupts him. "You did it. Just like you always do."

She sounds too…

Too something he doesn't want to define.

Ever.

So he looks around. "So how do we get out of here?" he says, dragging the conversation to where it needs to be—forward—rather than dwelling on the past.

She doesn't answer immediately, not with a quip or anything, and he looks back to see her head hanging in what could only be called resignation. "I'm not coming with you this time," she says softly.

"What?" he asks—demands.

 _Reality is wrong,_ his mind shouts.

"Most of me is down there," she says, looking down as she does. He does not look away from her face, her face which is more real than it has ever been, do you hear that? More real. More solid. More here. More _with him._

"I only held enough back to get you off the ship."

Something is fundamentally wrong with the universe, and it sounds like Cortana tearfully telling him that she is not coming with him. This is _not right._ This is _not_ the way the universe runs.

"No," he says flatly. "That's not—we go together," he says firmly. There is no room for anything else, any other 'option' that is not MasterChiefandCortana. This is the way it is, and she is coming with him.

"It's already done," she says, eyes bright and voice gentle, even as it rips apart his world piece by piece.

He struggles to keep it together, to hold it with the sheer force of his will.

"I am _not_ leaving you here," he says, since she seems to have forgotten that this is a fact of the universe.

"John," she whisper-sighs, and moves forward and places one hand against his chest, and gasps at the contact. "I've waited so long to do that."

He's a soldier. He's seen goodbyes.

 _This cannot be a goodbye._

It can't. Not when…not when he is the soldier everyone looks up to, the one who always wins, and he always wins because—

"It was my job to take care of you."

 _Not was,_ his mind shrieks. _Is, is, is—_

"We were supposed to take care of each other," Cortana says softly, breaking into his thoughts, and she is closer and he looks at her in surprise. He notices that she looks closer to tears than an AI has any right to and he tries to listen, because this looks important, this looks— "And we did," she says, and her voice is choked with emotion and it threatens to undo him.

He can't take this.

He can _not_ take anything else trying to destroy his world, his reality.

"Cortana, please," he says, and he knows he is begging when he hears his own voice and cannot say anything else and has to turn his head away because he knows he will cry if he says anything else.

He, Master Chief, Demon, winner, soldier—

His world is breaking.

(his heart is breaking)

Cortana gives a silent sigh and caresses his chest plate— _one last time—_ and begins to walk away.

This is wrong, this cannot be happening, and if it is—

If it is—

All the things he's left unsaid threaten to drown him, but he can't do anything other than stare at her.

He watches her, and he knows that if she had been human she would have been crying, and that when her mouth opens a sound like a broken heart would have come from it.

"Wait," he says. He can't just…he can't just let her walk away. _She_ can't walk away. She is his guide, his conscience, his helper, his friend—

His home.

She looks at him, and he wonders if she can read his mind because she says in a horribly choked voice, "Welcome _home,_ John."

No.

She fades away.

No.

She's wrong, this isn't home, this can't be home, not if she isn't there—

She's wrong, and all of this is wrong, because she is not here.

She won't be here.

No.

 _No._

Reality is undone, immutable facts have been changed, and _she is not with him._

His world is _shaken._

He stares at the last place she had been, and he does not notice that the world is physically collapsing around him until the ground shakes enough to forcibly direct his eyes elsewhere. He finally notices the destruction around him, and he thinks it fitting, the one right thing in all this _wrong._

 _It looks like I feel_ , he thinks absently as everything breaks apart.

Shattered.

Destroyed when a law of nature changed when it should not have.

There is a flash, and then darkness.

And for the briefest moment of instinctual thought, he waits for Cortana's blue to light the way.

Then he remembers.


	6. Anything For You (Hourglass Door)

A/N: There weren't any Hourglass Door fics so I had to write one. This one became more of a description of Dante's first meeting with Abby, from Dante's pov. I translated his Italian and then the last two sentences sort of sprung out. anyway. I hope you like it!

* * *

He was late—too much pressure, far too much—but he entered the door anyway. (Of course he entered. She was there. He felt it. He would be where she was. Always and forever.) A man instantly shouted at him.

Ah. Closed rehearsal. Well. He had a letter. (His guardian's handiwork) He showed the director and kept his attention on him. (She was there she was standing right there she was looking at him and soon he'd speak with her. But for now he must pay attention to this man, this one who held this critical moment of time in his hands.)

How long would he be staying with them? _Forever._ He wasn't sure.

Then the director asked _her_ to show him his mark. He didn't exactly want to be in the play, but…oh, how could he say no? (He can't)

She was distracted. Flustered. He wondered at it. (He hoped because of it) She gave him directions and told him to pretend he was hearing news for the first time.

He was pretending he was seeing her for the first time.

But she was speaking to him. Her voice—oh, how he'd longed to hear it.

"Thank you," he said softly, in his native tongue because with the glance of her eyes and her smile (uncertain though it was) he was back in his native home. "I'll do my best."

 _Always, I will always do my best for you._

 _Anything for you._


	7. How You Turned My World (Labyrinth)

_A/N: so...today is Valentine's Day, and the genre is romance, and the category is Labyrinth-honestly, I didn't cheat, it's the one I drew-and I tried to write something about Valentine evenings, only it ended up being more of a friendship piece, though I'm not sure how that happened. so I started this, and it doesn't exactly fit the romance category either, but I figure in Labyrinth fic we assume the romance has bits of angst in it anyway._

 _So here's my first contribution to the Labyrinth fandom. Hello! You've sucked me in and you won't let go and I don't want you to. Here's to many more in the future. Also, Happy Valentine's Day._

* * *

He'd kind of like to strangle whatever idiot had gotten him into this mess, only that would be himself and he has more pride than that.

Honestly.

Who knew that a mortal could be so…

Fascinating?

He'd been intrigued with her belief, early on, and had given her gifts to ensure that she stayed connected to his world, even if she didn't realize it. He simply planned to use her belief in his world for the power it gave him.

Then she'd wished her brother away.

Oh, it had been _Christmas._

(only not, of course, since old Nick refuses to take his sleigh Underground)

He'd been so ecstatic about having a runner, a real runner, that he'd limited himself. He'd play by her rules, by that book that had somehow leaked through the generations. He'd be the villain…

(the black cape is fun and he likes it. Playing with the snake had been the best fun he'd had in a while.)

He had been the villain. He'd sent Hoggle—in true villain fashion he temporarily refuses to admit he knows the dwarf's name— to send her back to the start. He'd waylaid her in the tunnels, when it seemed the Labyrinth—and its citizens— was playing by Sarah's rules as well and the dwarf was betraying him. He'd taunted her. She'd shown bravado. Said what she thought the heroine would say.

He'll admit only to himself that he'd been more ticked off by her insult than he should have been.

That should have been a clue.

But he didn't notice.

Didn't notice, even as he threatened Hoggle—again— and he didn't notice as he failed to really make good on that threat. That should have been a screaming, blazing clue that something had changed, when he didn't actually follow through on Bogging someone.

But he'd ignored these signs, concentrating on the dream. It had to be perfect. It had to be exactly what she wanted. He wouldn't lose. This was it.

He should have paid attention to how much effort he put into it, when he simply could have knocked her unconscious for the hours needed for him to win.

But she shattered the dream. It didn't matter, she'd still forgotten, as she stood in the junkyard and hugged a teddy bear to her chest, but somehow it _did_ matter because somehow, he'd started enjoying dancing with her.

He told himself it was because he was winning, and that must be the only positive emotion he could be feeling.

He held the baby, and he waited to win, and he ignored the part of him that insisted on feeling something like _regret_ that she was wandering lost and without purpose.

He should have paid attention to his first decision. His own limitation.

He'd decided to play by her rules, remember?

In her rules, she was the hero, and she would overcome every obstacle.

In her rules, apparently, it was all right to enter his city and then demolish his army. He had to admit they weren't the best fighting force, but…

All they were doing now was slowing her down.

That would work.

Know the game. He could do this.

He set the stairways to confuse her and run down her time, and he waited for her to say goodbye to her three new friends. He felt like every breath he took was dependent on her, and he hated it. Who was she? How had this…

She entered his staircase, and he stalked her, furious and infuriatingly _helpless_ to do anything other than sing words she ignored. He ignored them, at first, too, spitting them out in confused bits, and they became desperate pleas.

 _I can't live within you._

He saw her, racing desperately for her brother, and he saw her unwilling to give up, and something in him said, _Of course not. My Sarah will never give up._

And that was roughly when he discovered that he'd fallen in love with her.

He'd kind of like to strangle himself for getting into this mess—as she jumped and as the Labyrinth recognized her claim on her brother and as he sent the baby home—but he fixes his clothes—white, color of non-villainy, surely she can see?—and he steps into her view.

He is the desperate one now. He is exhausted. He is tired. He is weary, and he knows he has lost, even before she begins to speak. It's in her eyes, her cruel eyes, and he should have known, because he knew her and he knew what her rules would be, and he still played by them.

How could he do anything less, for the girl who fascinated him?

He finds he still can't live within her, but now he can't live without her, as he watches her from the tree outside her window. He can't stand it, and he flies away, and he watches the world turn beneath him, and he finds it strangely and horribly ironic.

 _How you turned my world, you precious thing._


	8. Snitches of Time (Harry Potter)

He wants to say many things.

 _Thank you for giving me a second chance._  
 _I will always do my best to fulfill the trust you placed in me._  
 _I wish you had trusted me earlier._  
 _I wish you had stood up for me earlier._  
 _Why didn't you stand up for me?_  
 _They almost killed me, and you did nothing—worse, you blamed me._  
 _I was miserable and lonely._  
 _Why didn't you care?_  
 _And now that you have claimed to, why are you making me do this?_  
 _Isn't there another way?_  
 _Why did you make me swear?_  
 _How could you?_  
 _How could you be so cruel, so harsh, so demanding?_  
 _Does my soul mean nothing?_

He wants to say many things.

(But he can't say them here, like this, right now, he _can't_.)

They come out tangled together anyway, tightly coiled around the two harsh, cold words summing up everything he feels... everything he means.

 _"Avada Kedavra!"_

 _A/N: I think this may have been part of what was going through his mind then. Some of it (I don't think Sirius meant to kill him but I don't think he paid enough attention either) is more unreliable narrator than actual fact, but if Severus Snape had summoned the hate necessary to fuel the Killing Curse, he might have actually pictured Dumbledore by then._

 _How's that, for my first time writing Snape?_

 _(seriously. how is it. tell me.)_


	9. The Stagecoach Job (Leverage)

_A/N: So this is the last in my series, the 20th fic, for the 20th genre: Western. Aaaand I procrastinated again and ended up with something that I'm not really happy with, but I can't_ not _post something-that would mean losing-so here is Leverage, with a Western theme. It's off, sorry..._

* * *

He didn't expect to find the stage coach empty. He'd expected to find it filled with the gold that he'd bargained for.

"Where's my gold?" he demanded.

His guards—brutal thugs, the lot of them— stared at the empty coach with as much confusion as he. Possibly more; they seemed rather foolish.

"I dunno, Boss," one of them drawled. "It was there when we checked last."

"And when was that?" he all but shrieked.

"When the Sheriff stopped us," another guard remembered, squinting into the distance as if he could see the tall figure of Sheriff Ford, ordering them to stop. There'd been two deputies with him, a bright-eyed one named Hardison and a tough muscle man they hadn't wanted to tangle with. There'd also been a beautiful woman—Sophie, wasn't it?—whose trunk had gone missing and they were searching all the coaches to see if it could be found.

(there'd been one former thief under the stage coach, sawing through the floor and pulling the gold through.)

(there'd been a thankful woman, recently made a widow, watching the team ride into the sunset as she held the gold to her chest and knew she could start over)

And at the end of the line, there is an irate crook.

This is how things are, how they will always be.

No matter the year.

No matter if the team wears cowboy hats or business suits, whether they solve puzzles or hack computers-

Whenever they are, they will help.

They will provide...

Leverage.


	10. Dancing With Instinct (Columbo)

He's one of the old ones. To him, crime is an evil thing that must be punished. To him, gut instinct is just as important as the rest of the facts or the evidence.

Oh, he could think about how what he calls instinct could just be his own observance. He could explain the wriggling voice as that of his subconscious which had noticed something. He could wonder if the peculiar sense of _knowing_ is really just his brain condensing years of experience, shortening the steps needed to point to a suspect and proclaim 'guilty'.

He could.

But he's one of the old ones.

He's depended on his instinct to keep him alive, to warn him of an incoming bullet, to point out the importance of a piece of evidence or lack of one, to notice an out of place expression on someone who should be grieving.

He _trusts_ it.

Even when there's nothing to go on but the insistent voice in his head drawing him back to a particular suspect, he trusts it. He follows it.

It's like a dance.

His instinct leads him, he spins under its guidance and into the arms of a suspect. His instinct settles around him and they move forward as one, dodging insults and threats as they slowly back the guilty one past the edge of the dance floor and into a corner.

When they inevitably break down and ask how he knew, he'll list details— a statement that didn't fit, a mark where there should have been none—but that's never quite right.

It's never quite the truth.

The truth is—

This is all a dance, and he trusts his partner.

* * *

 _A/N: I had this idea before, but when today called for a Crime fic and I'd selected Columbo, I thought to finally fix it up and post it. Columbo always seemed like an older show, recalling the black-and-whites with detectives brooding over something that didn't feel right. And...well I don't know, now I'm thinking of his instinct as an almost separate character. *shrugs helplessly* What do you think? Comments and critiques are always welcome!_


	11. Homesick (Queen's Thief)

Sounis' prison stank. The air was stale. The walls were full of sickeningly sweet mold. The rank odor of unwashed humans permeated everything, and over all of it was the gag-inducing scent of human waste and vomit.

It was such a far cry from what Eugenides was used to.

The mountains—his mountains—had air that was fresh. Cold, sharp—clean. He missed the mountains. He wanted _out._ He wanted to go _home._

But he couldn't go. Not yet. No, to protect, keep, and safeguard his home, he had to be here. In prison. Disguised, unimportant, stinking—

He began to wonder if it would ever wash out.

—

Attolia was flat. Dry. The horizon was shapeless. The air was heavy.

He'd begun to forget.

He'd started to forget what the cool mountain air felt like. How it smelled. What the horizon should look like—every direction a different silhouette than the one before, diverse and beautiful and anything but the monotony of this infernally _flat,_ dryplace.

He missed the rain.

He missed the particular humidity—or lack thereof—of the mountains.

He missed his _home._

He sat there, facing the window, as close to home as he could get, and he wondered if homesickness was fatal, and then he wondered if he even cared.

* * *

 _A/n: It's slightly horrible that my first gift to the Queen's Thief fandom is an angsty bit, but i can blame this on my fic-a-thon and the fact that today is Angst and I drew Queen's Thief. And I-who live in the Rocky Mountains-wondered if Gen ever got homesick. And then I remembered that bit in the third book and of course he would. I'm not sure if Attolia really is flat, but I'm saying it is for the sake of the fic. Just take it from someone who lives in the mountains-after a while, flat horizons get maddeningly boring._


End file.
